Pancreatic cancer is still associated with devastating prognosis. Real progress in its treatment has still not been achieved. Therefore new models to investigate this deadly malignancy are urgently needed. As a part of this process we have established and characterized a new human pancreatic cancer cell line.

The newly established pancreatic cancer cell line PaCa 5061 was characterized for its morphology, growth rate, chromosomal analysis and mutational analysis for K-ras, EGFR and p53 genes. Gene-amplification and RNA expression profile were obtained using Affymetrix microarray and overexpression was validated by IHC analysis. Tumorigenicity and spontaneous metastasis formation of PaCa 5061 cells were analyzed in pfp/rag2 mice. Sensitivity towards chemotherapy was analysed by MTT assay.

PaCa 5061 cells grew as an adhering monolayer with doubling time ranging from 30 to 48 hours. M-FISH analyses showed a hypertriploid complex karyotype with multiple numerical and unbalanced structural aberrations. Numerous genes were overexpressed, some of which have been previously implicated in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (GATA6, IGFBP3, IGFBP6), while others were novel and detected for the first time (MEMO1, RIOK3). Specifically highly overexpressed (fold change > 10) genes were identified as EGFR, MUC4, CEACAM1, CEACAM5 and CEACAM6. Subcutaneous transplantation of these cells into pfp/rag2 mice resulted in the formation of primary tumors and spontaneous lung metastasis.

The established PaCa 5061 cell line and injection into pfp/rag2 mice can be used as a new model for studying various aspects of the biology of human pancreatic cancer and potential treatment approaches for the disease.

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